This Palm Beach County company serves up challenging productions with a nice blend of local and New York City actors and a welcome infusion of talented directors and designers from across the nation. Artistic director Louis Tyrrell has an excellent instinct for play selection and maintains close relationships with several important playwrights. The result is a sophisticated level of theatrical artistry that sets the standard in South Florida. Some highlights this season: the sly and sophisticated comedy Red Herring, set during the McCarthy era (hey, red baiting can be a hoot!), and Lee Blessing's Black Sheep, also a dark comedy that takes aim at racial relations, the idle rich, and insipid pop culture.

Good things do come from Boca Raton: fine matzo ball soup, for instance. The blue hair rinse is divine. And Baby Robots, Boca's resident art-damaged combo, provides the town with a slightly deviant edge that it has long lacked. Why? Because the 'bots -- product of a team of visual and sonic artists creating in a virtual vacuum -- rip up the South Florida rock rule book. Irrepressible guitarist/singer Bobby Baker is exploding with ideas, some just as likely to dissolve into a mud puddle of distortion as to reach sonic transcendence. But more often than not, the Baby Robots strike a remarkable balance between psychosis and eloquence. And that's something Boca Raton could use more often.

Good things do come from Boca Raton: fine matzo ball soup, for instance. The blue hair rinse is divine. And Baby Robots, Boca's resident art-damaged combo, provides the town with a slightly deviant edge that it has long lacked. Why? Because the 'bots -- product of a team of visual and sonic artists creating in a virtual vacuum -- rip up the South Florida rock rule book. Irrepressible guitarist/singer Bobby Baker is exploding with ideas, some just as likely to dissolve into a mud puddle of distortion as to reach sonic transcendence. But more often than not, the Baby Robots strike a remarkable balance between psychosis and eloquence. And that's something Boca Raton could use more often.

Nice guys rarely finish first, especially nice guys with way-over-the-top baritones. But local legend John Cain Reilly is so serious about his art that he puts other frontmen to shame. From his mid-'90s days in Basketcase to his newest role leading ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist Scott Putesky's band (Three Ton Gate, née Stuck on Evil), Reilly uses his church-organ pipes to project a palpable aura of glorious Grand Guignol gloom. Suntanic, Stuck on Evil's 2001 release, vacillates between semi-shocking imagery and a cheeky, erotic/occult plateau; and Reilly is indisputably its focal point. From the core-breaching opener "Died of Me" to the chaotic/melodic Beatles cover ("I'm Only Sleeping") through the poetic (and formerly a capella) closer "Non-Photo Blues," Reilly is Fort Lauderdale's worship-worthy rock god.

Nice guys rarely finish first, especially nice guys with way-over-the-top baritones. But local legend John Cain Reilly is so serious about his art that he puts other frontmen to shame. From his mid-'90s days in Basketcase to his newest role leading ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist Scott Putesky's band (Three Ton Gate, née Stuck on Evil), Reilly uses his church-organ pipes to project a palpable aura of glorious Grand Guignol gloom. Suntanic, Stuck on Evil's 2001 release, vacillates between semi-shocking imagery and a cheeky, erotic/occult plateau; and Reilly is indisputably its focal point. From the core-breaching opener "Died of Me" to the chaotic/melodic Beatles cover ("I'm Only Sleeping") through the poetic (and formerly a capella) closer "Non-Photo Blues," Reilly is Fort Lauderdale's worship-worthy rock god.

There's nothing quite as thrilling as catching an up-and-coming young act on the threshold of a national French kiss, which is what audiences have witnessed over the past year with Boca Raton's Dashboard Confessional. And when these saviors of the emo set, led by diminutive, tattooed love god Chris Carrabba, brought the show home to Pompano Beach's now-defunct Millennium Club from a national tour this past December to the thunderous acclaim of a hometown crowd (who were just as proud as pleasured), it gave rise to feelings of validation and redemption, as well as more than one misty eye. Although he's been fortunate enough to chill with Conan O'Brien on the late-night talk-show circuit, sad-sack lyricist Carrabba hasn't yet exploited his hunky heartthrob status. When that happens, it's likely all over. We feel your pain, Chris. Glad your hard work is finally paying off.